“Sorry, Mom. My ringer was off. What can I do for you?” I asked, abandoning any semblance of civil small talk and opting for straight to the point.

I hadn’t spoken to my parents in four months. We had an understanding to leave each other alone, communicating only when necessary.

I hadn’t returned home to North Carolina in over two years. It had stopped being home for me after Jayme died.

“That’s ridiculous. What if something had happened? No one would have been able to reach you!” my mother reprimanded, digging that knife just a little deeper. She sounded concerned, but appearances were deceiving.

“Sorry, Mom,” I repeated. But an apology would never undo the damage of the last three years.

My mother gave a huff, obviously feeling righteous in her indignation. My mother wore martyrdom well. She was the self-sacrificing matriarch of an ungrateful family.

The whole thing made me sick.

“You need to come home,” my mother said without further preamble.

My chest squeezed, and I clenched the phone so tightly in my hand that I started to cut off circulation to my fingers.

I stayed quiet, not trusting myself to speak. I breathed in deeply through my nose. I didn’t dare look at Brooks, who I knew was watching me curiously. He had no idea of the emotional land mine I had walked into just by answering the phone. He wasn’t privy to the side of my life that I worked hard to hide from.

“Bre! Did you hear me? This is important. I wouldn’t bother calling otherwise,” she said harshly, cutting me open with the truth of her words.

“Why?” I finally asked, clearing my throat around the huge lump that had formed there.

My mother’s annoyed snort was loud in my ear. “Are you serious? Do I really need to remind you of what next weekend is?” she declared hatefully.

The lump dissolved around the flood of my anger. Fuck, no, I hadn’t forgotten! Forgetting would never be an option for me. She wasn’t the only person who had lost Jayme. But my parents acted as though they alone grieved the loss of the fifteen-year-old girl who had disappeared from our lives too soon.

“No, Mom. I didn’t forget,” I replied through gritted teeth. I wanted to yell and rage at her cold disregard for my feelings. But Aubrey Duncan was a master at containing emotion. I had to be. It was the only way I got by.

“The local teen center is doing a memorial in Jayme Marie’s memory, and they want us there. Your father is planning to say something. The newspaper will be there, as well as a local TV crew. The entire family should be present for it.” My mom’s words were final, not allowing any argument.

I was expected to obey, no questions asked.

But I wouldn’t.

I couldn’t.

As much as a part of me wanted to repair the gaping hole in my family, I couldn’t return to Marshall Creek. I couldn’t go back to the two-story brick house where I had grown up. I couldn’t walk past the closed door that would never open again.

No way.

“I can’t make it,” I said quietly, already bracing myself for the fallout.

“You can’t make it?” my mother asked angrily.

I shook my head, even though my mother couldn’t see me.

“You’re telling me that you won’t come home for a memorial in memory of your baby sister? You can’t take a couple of days out of your life to honor your sister? You of all people should understand how important this is! You owe this to her!” My mother’s voice cracked as it rose to a shrill screech.

I closed my eyes and tried not to let the hatred overtake me. Hatred for my mother, who would never allow me to forget how I had failed Jayme. Hatred for the drugs that had taken my sister before her time. Hatred for the f**king ass**le who had given them to her.

And most of all, hatred for myself.

That hatred was a ferocious thing that smoldered in my belly. It was always there. It never went away. And my mother knew just how to stoke it into a full-blown forest fire.

“I have to go, Mom,” I said, not bothering to try to explain myself to her, to tell her that returning to Marshall Creek was like ripping a bandage off a wound that was only now starting to heal. There was no point. My mother wouldn’t have listened.

And maybe I was being selfish. Maybe I should make myself go home. But I just knew it would never accomplish what I would want it to. I wouldn’t be able to go there and honor Jayme the way she deserved. Because that memorial was about my parents and their refusal to let go, not the reality of the person my sister had been.

“I can’t believe how selfish you are, Bre,” my mother spat out. The mechanical click indicated she had ended the call.

I dropped the phone back on the coffee table and gathered up my textbooks and notes, shoving them into my backpack.

“What was that about, Aubrey?” Brooks asked, concerned.

“Nothing,” I replied shortly, grabbing handfuls of pencils and highlighters and throwing them into the bag.

Brooks’s hand gripped my wrist, stilling me. “That didn’t seem like nothing. You look like you’re about to go throw yourself off a bridge. What the f**k was that about?” he asked firmly.

I gave a humorless laugh. “Sheesh, Brooks, let’s hope I never need you to talk me off a ledge. Your suicidal de-escalation techniques suck.”

I slung my backpack up on my shoulder and grabbed my keys.

“And you’re seriously evading. You’re going to be a counselor, Aubrey. You know how important it is to talk about stuff and not bottle it up. That’s what leads someone to take an Uzi into a McDonald’s. Friends don’t let friends become mass shooters,” Brooks remarked drolly.